From Offense to Defense: The Political Discourse and Use of

Sports in Putin’s Russia from a Historical Perspective

Master Thesis European Studies

Student: Jeroen Bart

Supervisor: Sanimir Resic

Date: 15-05-2017

ii

Contents

Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... iii

Appendix 1: List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................ iv

Introduction and Structure of the Thesis ................................................................................................ 1

Chapter 1: Concepts and Methodology .................................................................................................. 6

Chapter 2: The Rise of Sport as a Political Tool in the Soviet Union ..................................................... 11

Chapter 3: Interruption and Continuation: Sport in the Post-Soviet era and the Beginning of the Putin

Regime ................................................................................................................................................... 20

Chapter 4: Russia on the Defensive ....................................................................................................... 33

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 44

Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................... 47

iii

Abstract

This thesis looks into the political discourse surrounding the doping scandal that has

developed in Russian sport over the last two years. The paper hypothesizes that because of the

importance of nationalism and Russia’s great power status, the Putin regime has, despite

publicly stating the opposite, actively contributed to the further politicization of sport by

returning to a sport discourse closely resembling that of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

By taking a historical perspective, comparing the narrative of the Soviet Union surrounding

sports during the Cold War and that of the Putin administration in the aftermath of the

Mclaren reports, the paper will try to establish the similarities and differences to be found in

the two narratives. It will do so by using the existing academic knowledge regarding

propaganda and discourse of the Soviet period regarding sport, and publications, interviews

and news articles by the Russian government in the last few years. These sources will be

examined through political discourse analysis, a methodology from the social sciences. It is

very compatible with the historical perspective this paper uses to contextualize the current

climate of sports discourse in the field of politics.

This paper will highlight the importance of sport for the legitimacy of the Putin administration,

linking nationalism, national pride and the “Russia as a great power” narrative as

conceptualized by Bo Petersson, to show that the Putin regime has backed itself into a corner,

where reinforcing its Soviet-inspired discourse on sport has become important in order to

retain its legitimacy.

iv

Appendix 1: List of Abbreviations

ARAF Russian Athletics Federation

EU European Union

FIFA Fédération Internationale de Football Association

FSB Russian Federal Security Service

GDR German Democratic Republic

IAAF International Association of Athletics Federation

IOC International Olympic Committee

NKVD Narodny Komissariat Vnutrennih Del (People's Comissariat of Internal Affairs,

Secret Police under Stalin)

NOC National Olympic Committee

PDA Political Discourse Analysis

RFU Russian Football Union

ROC Russian Olympic Committee

RUSADA Russian Anti-Doping Agency

SED Socialist Unity Party of Germany

TASS Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii TASS

UEFA Union of European Football Associations

USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

WADA World Anti-Doping Agency

1

Introduction and Structure of the Thesis

The run up to the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics witnessed a major scandal that shocked the

sporting world. An independent investigation, sanctioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency

(known as WADA), and written by Canadian lawyer Richard H Mclaren, reported of a large-

scale, government sponsored doping program that had been taking place in Russia since

roughly 2010. This report proved only to be the tip of the proverbial iceberg: A second report,

published in November 2016, further substantiated the allegations made towards the Russian

government and sporting bodies.

It is certainly not the first major doping scandal in elite sports. In an attempt to show the

supposed ‘superiority’ of socialism over Capitalism through success in international top-level

sport, the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) established a clandestine doping

program in 1974-75, authorized by top officials in the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and top

government bodies.1 All possible state organs, including the countries’ respective secret

services were involved in misleading the international sporting community. Accusations of

clandestine doping programs have also been raised against the Soviet Union as well as other

members of its satellite system in Eastern Europe, albeit perhaps more modest in scale than

was the case with the GDR.2 In the 1990s it was China which was under suspicion for state-

run doping practices.3 One might conclude from this list of examples that it was mostly

(former-) communist countries who were suspected of doping programs or even caught in the

act, but this does not paint the full picture: A number of western sports authorities (including

ones from the United States) turned a blind eye to potential transgressors on their own team,

justified by an argument along the lines of “they are doing it so we can too!”.4

The point of this short summary of known or alleged doping scandals is not to criticize the

cleanliness of sport or an alleged failure of doping control (in the end, athletes were caught).

What this list does show, is that, especially since WWII, sport has often been a very

politicized area. States have often seen sports as a means for achieving certain policy goals.

1 Mike Dennis, "Securing the Sports ‘Miracle’: The Stasi and East German Elite Sport," The International Journal

of the History of Sport 29, no. 18 (2012). 2557 2 V. Møller, I. Waddington, and J.M. Hoberman, Routledge Handbook of Drugs and Sport (Taylor & Francis,

2015). 212 3 Ibid. 223

4 Ibid. 212

2

Historian John Wilson states that sport can be seen as a tool, “available for use for a variety of

purposes such as competition for educational resources, combating juvenile delinquency,

enhancing military preparedness, boosting civic pride, and achieving diplomatic goals”.5 As

social scientists Mike Dennis and Jonathan Grix claim, sport has been used as a political

resource for centuries, often as a part of an attempt to create a sense of statehood among

citizens. 6 Sporting ‘mega-events’ are most certainly a part of this equation as well.

Calculations by host cities/nations for holding a sporting mega-event (such as the Sochi 2014

winter Olympics or the planned 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia) are often based on the

perceived international prestige and credibility that can be gained. Thus, both external and

internal policy goals can be achieved through sports.

With regards to the recent doping scandal, Russian officials immediately countered the

Mclaren report, questioning its validity, and the Russian foreign ministry even called it “a part

of Washington’s ongoing effort to isolate Russia and to build opposition to Putin inside

Russia”.7 Regardless of whether the accusations of WADA are in fact true and the doping use

in Russia was government-steered or controlled, the Mclaren report has once again led to a

highly politicized sports climate in the last year. In fact, a high-level ‘war of words’, or

perhaps a ‘discursive war’, is being fought out between Russia on the one hand, and

International sport organizations, such as the IOC and WADA, and even government officials

of other countries, on the other. Russian officials have accused these organizations, as well as

other countries, of ‘politicizing sport’ for their own gain. The refusal of the Putin regime to

accept the conclusions of the Mclaren report has led to a major upheaval in the sporting world.

When examining more closely, the rhetoric expressed by this regime seems to show

remarkable similarities with the Cold War period, where accusations of doping were quite

common on either side of the ‘iron curtain’, and the West (or the US and its European allies)

were pitted against the East (the Soviet Union and their Communist allies).

This paper will attempt to answer the following questions: How has Russia responded to the

accusations in the Mclaren Reports, and what are the deeper, underlying reasons for this

response?

Structure

5 J. Wilson, Playing by the Rules: Sport, Society, and the State (Wayne State University Press, 1994). 18

6 Mike Dennis and Jonathan Grix, Sport under Communism : Behind the East German 'Miracle' (Basingstoke,

Palgrave Macmillan, 2012., 2012). 14 7 TASS, "Foreign Ministry Says Campagin against Russian Athletes Strikes Blow on Olympic Movement," 21-07-

2016, http://tass.com/politics/889856.

3

The thesis will begin by explaining the central concepts and theoretical framework used in

this research. We will investigate the discourse surrounding the Russian doping scandal

through a multidisciplinary approach, combining concepts from history, political science, and

social sciences, including linguistics to provide an extensive answer to the research question.

Since we are looking specifically at discourse, the main methodology used for thesis will be

that of political discourse analysis, as interpreted by linguists Isabela and Norman Fairclough

in Political Discourse Analysis: A method for advanced students. This framework is used to

analyze the potential underlying reasoning for the discourse chosen by the Putin regime. This

discourse will then be contextualized by putting it in a historical perspective.

Once the methodology of the thesis has been explained, the paper will continue with a

thorough analysis of sports in the Soviet Union. As historian Robert Edelman argues, multi-

sport festivals, of which the Olympics were the most visible example, “allowed the Soviet

regime to ascribe an array of changing symbols, slogans and meaning to sport”.8 Until World

War II, the USSR boycotted the Olympic games (despite Russia being a founding member of

the IOC) which were characterized as “designed to deflect the workers from the class struggle

while training them for imperialist wars”.9 Therefore, this historical analysis starts by

providing an overview of the USSR’s sport policy goals from 1945 onwards, when the Soviet

Union sought to establish itself a world power, including in the field of sports. Besides policy

goals, the political discourse surrounding these goals will also be described. The discourse

used around the Olympic boycotts of the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980 and the reciprocal

boycott by the Soviet Union and its allies of the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984 are of

particular importance in this regard.

Once the sporting paradigm of the USSR has been discussed, a brief overview will also have

to be given of sport policy during the turbulent 1990s. This turbulent period, where sport was

not considered a priority in Russian politics, provides a stark contrast to the Soviet period.

This chapter will then follow the timeline leading up to the establishment of the Vladimir

Putin regime that has now been in charge in Russia for more than a decade. In various ways,

political scientist Andrey Makarychev argues that the main facets of the political narrative

presented by Putin’s current regime are ‘sovereignty’ and Russia as a great power.10

Political

8 S. Wagg and D.L. Andrews, East Plays West: Sport and the Cold War (New York: Routledge, 2007). xii

9 Ibidem

10 ndre Stanisla o ic Makar che , "From Sochi – 2014 to Fifa – 2018: The Crisis of Sovereignty and the

Challenges of Globalization," in Mega Events in Post-Soviet Eurasia : Shifting Borderlines of Inclusion and

4

scientists Derek Hutcheson and Bo Petersson make a similar case, pointing out that, Putin’s

legitimacy, defined as “a popular belief that a rule, institution, or leader has the right to

govern”, rests on three pillars: “the maintenance of economic growth; the creation of domestic

order; and the skillful use of myth to project the president as the bulwark against chaos and

foreign threat, in the process reinforcing Russia’s status an unequivocal ‘Great Power’”.11

This paper will try to show the importance of these policy goals and their consequences for

sports in modern day Russia compared to the USSR. What are the biggest similarities and

differences? And, most importantly for answering the main question of this thesis, what are

the similarities and differences in political discourse? After a period in which Russia shied

away from sports, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, more funds and attention have

been given to sports again during the 2000s. This process will be described, including the role

of the Soviet sports legacy during this development. This chapter will also focus on the Sochi

2014 Winter Olympic Games, since they provide an excellent moment to gain insight in the

official Russian narrative surround sports, and the importance attached to it.

In chapter 4, this paper will discuss the recent crisis surrounding Russian sports, which does

not only include the still developing doping scandal, but will also include an explanation of

the 2015 FIFA corruption scandal in the difficulties Russia is currently facing in maintaining

a steady course regarding its sports policy and discourse. The doping scandal, beginning in

2015 but escalating in 2016, will be discussed extensively, with particular emphasis on the

responses of Russian government officials to the accusations made in the various reports

commissioned by WADA, as well as the reports of ‘whistleblowers’ whose confessions led to

further investigations. It is these responses by Russian leaders that showcase the resemblance

in discourse and tactics between the Soviet Union sport discourse and that of modern day

Russia.

Finally, in the conclusion, the paper will be summarized and analyzed. This last part of the

paper will discuss whether Russia has indeed returned to practices and policies previously

established by the USSR, or if this hypothesis has been proven untrue, based on potentially

significant differences found during review of the available information. It will also discuss

the most likely reasoning underlying the Putin regime’s discourse, and what potential

consequences this discourse has for both Russia and the International sporting community.

Exclusion, ed. ndre Stanisla o ic Makar che and le andra ats k (New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 198 11

Derek S. Hutcheson and Bo Petersson, "Shortcut to Legitimac : Popularit in Putin’s Russia," Europe-Asia Studies 68, no. 7 (2016). 1107

5

With the information presented, it will be possible to place the current political course

followed by the Kremlin in a larger perspective, and explain its origins. By looking at the

usage of sport in Russia through the lens of history, it will hopefully become easier to

understand how we reached the current climate.

6

Chapter 1: Concepts and Methodology

The concept of political narratives, or ‘political myths’, is of particular importance for

understanding investment in sports in Russia. A political myth in this paper is defined along

the lines of Bo Petersson, as a “narrative that is believed to be true or acted on as if they were

believed to be true by a substantial group of people”.12

In the context of Russia, the political

myth that Russia had, has and always will have a great power status plays a particularly large

role in the political climate.13

This viewpoint makes international prestige incredibly

important, and this is where sports come into play. In the last decade, sport has become an

important component of the Putin regime in an attempt to gain international prestige and

boosting national pride. It is the hypothesis of this paper that the Putin regime has tried to so

by returning to a political discourse surrounding sports closely resembling that of the Soviet

Union, and that the 2016 doping scandal has only lead to an intensification of this discourse.

This thesis will try to show that in order to retain its domestic power, it is of vital importance

to the Putin administration to discredit the findings of the Mclaren Report. As political

scientist Andrey Makarychev notes in “Sporting Mega-Events in Post-Soviet Eurasia”, Russia

faces a “severe crisis of Sovereignty”.14

This crisis, according to Makarychev, stems partly

from the Ukraine conflict, which made Russia subject to international economic and financial

sanctions, as well as diplomatic isolation. Makarychev further focuses on the crisis present in

the Russian football industry and the crisis in legitimacy that FIFA still faces, but it is another

point that he makes that is relevant to this thesis. His key argument is that “the long term

repercussions of this triple crisis stretch far beyond sport and elucidates the inherent weakness

of the Kremlin’s project of boosting Russia’s role and status in the world through hosting

exorbitantly costly and pretentious world-scale performances”.15

While Makarychev refers to

the 2014 Sochi Olympics and 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, one could easily put the

doping scandal in the same category: If one takes the Mclaren Report at face value, it is not

hard to find the link between boosting prestige and elite-sports performances that win medals.

The Mclaren Reports have done the exact opposite of boosting prestige; in order to save face

12

Bo Petersson, "The Eternal Great Power Meets the Recurring Times of Troubles: Twin Political Myths in Contemporary Russian Politics," in European Cultural Memory Post-89 (Brill, 2013). 304 13

Ibid. 302 14

ndre Stanisla o ic Makar che , "From Sochi – 2014 to Fifa – 2018: The Crisis of Sovereignty and the Challenges of Globalization," in Mega Events in Post-Soviet Eurasia : Shifting Borderlines of Inclusion and Exclusion, ed. ndre Stanisla o ic Makar che and le andra ats k (New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 196 15

Ibidem, 197

7

and maintain the narrative of Russia as a great power, with Putin as its strong leader, Russian

officials had very little other options than discrediting the research and findings on its alleged

state-run doping program, and present the findings as a larger conspiracy against Russia. This

paper will try to show convincingly that this is indeed the case, while also noting potential

unintentional consequences of this policy.

This thesis will investigate the discourse surrounding the Russian doping scandal through a

multidisciplinary approach, combining concepts from history, political science, and social

sciences, including linguistics to provide an extensive answer to the research question. Since

we are looking at discourse, the main method used for thesis will be that of political discourse

analysis. According to social scientists Teun van Dijk, political discourse analysis (PDA), can

be understood as “the analysis of political discourse from a critical perspective, a perspective

which focuses on the reproduction and contestation of political power through political

discourse”.16

This definition, also characterizes political discourse as attached to political

actors – individuals, political institutions and organizations, engaged in political processes and

events. As linguists Isabela and Norman Fairclough note, PDA “needs to incorporate an

explanatory viewpoint, the point of view of an explanatory critique, in assessing how actual

discursive practices contribute to maintaining or transforming a given social order, including

existing power relations”.17

Discourse, in this view, is seen as “social use of language in

social contexts”, or in the case of politics, “the language associated with a particular social

field or practice”.18

Furthermore, discourses are “ways of representing reality”, a particular

paradigm through which to see the world.

In the social sciences and in PDA in particular, social life can be conceptualized as the

interplay between three levels of social reality: social structures, practices and events. Social

events are concrete individual instances of things happening (e.g. a doping scandal being

discovered), people behaving in certain ways, or people acting (including by means of

language). Social structures are a more abstract concept, which is defined by Fairclough and

Fairclough as “structures, systems and mechanisms which social scientists postulate as causal

forces in terms of which events and practices can be explained”.19

In the particular case

investigated in this study, the main social structure in focus is the Russian “great power

16

Teun Van Dijk, "What is political discourse analysis?" in Belgian journal of linguistics 11.1 (1997): 11-52. 17

Isabela Fairclough and Norman Fairclough, Political Discourse Analysis: A method for advanced students (New York: Routledge, 2012). 12 18

Ibidem, 81 19

Ibidem, 82

8

narrative”, the political myth described by Bo Petterson as vital to Putin’s legitimacy.

Although the relationship between structures, practices and events is quite complex, one can

safely argue that social structures such as these can directly influence practices, which

consequently shape events.

At the core of PDA, is the idea of practical reasoning. While political decision-making and

action is not always determined by the force of the better argument, but perhaps by power

interests, this does not mean that argumentation and reason is not at the heart of politics. As

Fairclough and Fairclough note, “reasons for favoring certain lines of action rather than others

may include such goals as holding on to power or increasing it, so power can be and often is

itself a reason for action. Even if this is an unreasonable argument in the eyes of some, it is

still an argument”.20

Decision-making processes are thus argumentative in nature. Fairclough

and Fairclough define argumentation as a verbal social activity, in which people attempt to

criticize or justify claims. In this case, through challenging the conclusions and findings in the

Mclaren report, the Putin regime has made these findings the claims central to the debate.

Following this line of thinking, the main question in this paper thus tries to lay bare the

discourse expressed in public statements by Russian top officials, and the underlying

argumentation for this discourse. To come to a conclusion on a line of action (in this, the use

of a particular discourse), agents operate with hierarchies of goals and hierarchies of values.21

In the case of the doping scandal, I argue that the reasoning on which this discourse is based,

values the legitimization of the Putin regime, and thus its consolidation of power, higher than

any potential consequences this might have for the sporting world. This requires Russia’s

great power status to be expressed through sporting successes and mega-events, and not being

tainted by accusations of a state-run doping program.

Fairclough and Fairclough argue that textual analysis in critical discourse analysis, comprises

both interdiscursive analysis, and language analysis.22

Interdiscursive analysis of a text

identifies the genres, discourse and styles that are drawn upon. This can show how previous

discourses, such as the political discourse regarding sport in the USSR, play a role in shaping

the discourse of today:

“Texts are shaped but not determined by existing orders of discourse in which genres,

discourses and styles are articulated together in relatively established and conventional ways;

20

Ibidem, 15 21

Ibidem, 44 22

Ibidem, 85

9

social agents in producing texts may combine genres and/or discourses and/or styles in

unconventional ways; and such innovative combinations can be semiotic aspects of social

changes taking place in behavior and action, which may ultimately be established as changes

in social practices and in orders of discourse”

This paper will emphasize the clear connection between the central components of the

discourse used in the Soviet period, and the current discourse of the Putin regime. It will be

argued that the discourse used by the Soviet Union, is now mirrored in the current discourse,

albeit with one major change: the central tenet is no longer the superiority of communism as

an ideology, but instead the superiority of Russia and its administration. Thus, nationalism has

replaced communism. This change in sports discourse is also reflected in a general change of

social practices, and these two processes feed into each other. A quote, often attributed to

Mark Twaine (although sources for this are lacking), sums up the situation hypothesized here:

“history does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes”.23

To assess this discourse, public statements from President Vladimir Putin and other officials

such as Current Vice-Premier Mutko, previously minister of Sport, will be analyzed. These

can be found on the English web pages of Russian government institutions and officials, but

also on English speaking news websites such as TASS, a Russian state-owned news agency,

that is at least in theory independent. While it is not within this scope of this thesis to do

extensive research towards the truth regarding the ‘independence’ of TASS, it will be made

clear in this paper that the narrative presented on TASS closely resembles the official line

followed by the Putin regime, and therefore provides excellent insight in the narrative that the

regime is attempting to establish. Ample research has already been done towards the sport in

Russia and the political discourse surrounding it in previous eras, such as the Soviet period.

Emphasis will be placed on the narrative and argumentation used by Soviet leaders for their

heavy investments in sport. The importance of propaganda surrounding sports and the

Olympic Games for Soviet policy goals both domestically and internationally will be

described, using the body of academic work available.

As the author of this thesis does not read or write Russian, the scope of the paper will be

limited to English publications. Although this limits the ability of this paper to make

definitive statements on the consequences of the doping scandal and the following discourse

23

Unknown Author, “History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Rhymes” on http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/12/history-rhymes/ (accessed 15-05-2017)

10

in Russia itself, it does not limit the ability of this research to show the clear red thread

running through political discourse surrounding sport that the Putin regime is trying to

establish, in particular when it comes to discrediting the research of the Mclaren reports in the

international sports and political arena. Due to time constraints, the cut-off point of the paper

is January 2017. Although the doping scandal and its consequences are still developing, by

then, the political discourse in response to this scandal had been well established, and is

unlikely to change in direction or tone in the months that follow.

11

Chapter 2: The Rise of Sport as a Political Tool in the

Soviet Union

This chapter will describe the current academic knowledge available regarding the use of

sport in politics and propaganda in the USSR, starting after the Second World War, when the

Soviet Union joined the Olympic movement and sports became an important ideological

‘battlefield’. It will focus mainly on the narratives presented by the Soviet Union, but also

describe the narratives present in Western media during the Cold War era. The connection

between doping usage and the propagandistic narratives will be dissected as well. This will

provide us with the basis for a comparison of the current strategy used by the Putin

administration in regards to the 2014 Sochi Olympics and subsequent doping scandals leading

up to the 2016 Rio Summer Olympic Games.

The link between sport and politics

Despite the enormous growth in importance of sports and sporting events during the last

century, one thing has remained the same: The position of the IOC that “sport is above

politics”, and that sport’s moral purity should be guarded.24

In 2015, the IOC Executive Board

approved the latest revision of the Code of Ethics, which it describes as “an integral part of

the Olympic Charter”.25

Within this charter, the second ‘universal fundamental ethical

principle’, the foundation of Olympism, is the following: “respect of the principle of the

universality and political neutrality of the Olympic Movement”.26

It is interesting to note that

this narrative can also be found in the discourse of the Putin administration: “Don’t Politicize

sports”, says Vitaly Mutko, while Alexander Zhukov, former president of the Russian

Olympic Committee, stated that “sports is beyond politics”.27

However, if one takes a good look at professional sports in current times, it is nearly

impossible to uphold this position. This stance has, in fact, led to international sports

organizations turning a blind eye to abuses of Olympic ideals, which in itself is a political

24

Keys, Globalizing Sport: National Rivalry and International Community in the 1930s. 61 25

International Olympic Committee, "Code of Ethics," https://www.olympic.org/code-of-ethics. 26

"Ioc Code of Ethics," https://stillmed.olympic.org/media/Document%20Library/OlympicOrg/IOC/What-We-Do/Leading-the-Olympic-Movement/Code-of-Ethics/EN-IOC-Code-of-Ethics-2016.pdf. (Accessed 11-01-2017) 27

ndre Stanisla o ic Makar che , "From Sochi – 2014 to Fifa – 2018: The Crisis of Sovereignty and the Challenges of Globalization," in Mega Events in Post-Soviet Eurasia : Shifting Borderlines of Inclusion and Exclusion, ed. ndre Stanisla o ic Makar che and le andra ats k (New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 198

12

statement.28

It is easy to find examples of this: Already in the 1930s the Japanese invasion in

Manchuria did not stop the IOC from awarding the 1940s Olympics to Tokyo, nor did the

actions of Nazi Germany lead to exclusion.29

One could make a comparison here to the

annexation of Crimea by Russia, where this did not seem to cause any doubt among FIFA

officials about the planned World Cup of 2018 in Russia. Of course, if political neutrality was

not mentioned in its charters, this would undoubtedly only further complicate things. If the

IOC or other sporting organizations started taking sides in political or military struggles, this

would automatically exclude certain parties from partaking in sporting events, making them

even more political than is the case when trying to maintain neutrality. It is important to note

however, that neutrality itself is also a political statement. Sports have always been

intertwined with politics. As John Wilson argues in Playing by the Rules: Sport, Society and

the State: “Without rules to define access to decision making and authority – the stuff of

politics – sport would not exist”.30

The USSR’s political goals through sports

As sports historian James Riordan notes in Sports in Soviet Society, widely recognized as the

first academic book about sport in the Soviet Union, sport took a central place in the Soviet

Social system.31

It was useful to the Soviet regime because of its inherent qualities of being

easily understood and enjoyed, being capable of developing mass enthusiasm, being

superficially apolitical, and permitting safe self-expression. Riordan states that “Especially in

a society which, in a short span of time, experienced three revolutions, a civil war, rapid

industrialization, forced collectivization of agriculture, purges, mass terror, and two world

wars, sports has been important as a broad channel for the discharge of emotional tensions.32

According to this seminal work, the roots of Soviet sport in part lie deep in Russian history,

the people’s habits and traditions, the climate, state’s preoccupation with external and internal

enemies, and the intellectual ferment of Russian society in the latter part of the 19th

and early

20th

centuries. After the Second World War, the USSR set a new national target: to catch up

and overtake the most advanced industrial powers, including in sport.33

The pre-war

28

Keys, Globalizing Sport: National Rivalry and International Community in the 1930s. 61 29

Ibid. 62 30

Wilson, Playing by the Rules: Sport, Society, and the State. 13 31

J. Riordan, Sport in Soviet Society: Development of Sport and Physical Education in Russia and the Ussr (Cambridge University Press, 1980). 6 32

Ibid. 8 33

Ibid. 162

13

pyramidal structure of sports administration was re-established and refashioned to suit the

new circumstances, and incentives such as cash prizes and the allocation of scarce

commodities were installed for setting records and winning championships. Athletes were

even to receive salaries and bonuses, further encouraging the formation of an elite of sports

stars.34

All of this despite the fact that ‘amateur’ athletes were still the norm according to the

rules of international sport federations. This meant there was a big difference between the

appearance projected to the outside world and the reality of the Soviet sport system, which

already at this time started to professionalize.35

Accompanying the new focus on sports was

also a purge of famous sportsmen who had contacts with foreigners prior to the war, in order

to ensure it was the central government that could control the information coming in and out

of the sports world regarding Soviet practices.36

The Party Central Committee outlined new targets in December 1948, entailing reinforcement

of the organization sports collectives, and ensuring the all-round expansion of all sports, but

with particular attention given to sports that featured prominently in the Olympic Games. The

Committee also attempted to improve the sports amenities available to collectives and

societies, as well as heightening the responsibility of coaches and instructors for the

performances of their charges, and extensively utilizing the press, radio and cinema for

popularizing sport among the public. Dr. Matveyev, a former medical advisor to the pre-war

All-Union Physical Culture Council, said: “Sport in the Soviet Union has two objectives:

propaganda for abroad, and the physical training of the Red Army and NKVD (Security

Police). The victories abroad make excellent domestic propaganda. People have little to be

proud of otherwise… the average Russian thinks ‘If Dinamo can beat a French team,

obviously the French have even less bread and meat than we do’. This is exactly what the

Soviets wish people to think, as a sort of justification for their hunger and consolation for the

evils of the system”.37

The USSR in the Olympics

Before the USSR joined the Olympic movement, the Soviet Sports Committee, led by

chairman Nikolai Romanov, had to balance demands from the international sporting

organizations and the IOC (ascribing to amateurism of athletes, founding a National Olympic

34

Ibid. 35

Ibid. 36

Ibid. 37

Ibid. 167

14

Committee that was supposed to be independent of its government) with conditions placed

upon them by the Soviet leadership: To gain permission to go to international tournaments,

Romanov had to “guarantee victory, otherwise the ‘free’ bourgeois press would fling mud at

the whole nation”.38

The fact that the USSR leadership was not willing to send athletes abroad

without a guarantee for victory clearly shows the importance of sport as a political tool. In the

end, as historian Jenifer Parks describes, the questions over the amateur status of Soviet

athletes and the threat of state interference in the IOC proved less significant when the matter

of accepting a Soviet NOC and a Soviet member to the IOC came to a vote. The IOC, wanting

to live up to its ideals of internationalism and to maintain its prestige, voted to recognize the

Soviet NOC in May 1951, partly based on the argument that since they didn’t ask this of other

nations, they shouldn’t investigate Soviet sports regulations either.39

In addition to logistics and training, the Soviet Sports Committee also had the image of the

Soviet Union to consider. From the very beginning of the USSR’s Olympic participation,

propaganda and imagery was considered of equal importance: All information related to

international sport to be released by TASS (the Soviet news agency), would solely be released

with the agreement of the Central Committee Department for Propaganda and Agitation.40

Control of the Soviet Union’s image had to rest with the Central Committee, not with Western

journalists. As Jenifer Parks shows, in general, the Soviet Union only sporadically opened up

to foreign press regarding sports affairs, and when it did, this was through “well organized,

strategically timed displays of hospitality designed to further increase the Soviet Union’s

international prestige”.41

In the end, the first Olympic participation of the USSR at the 1952

Olympic Games of Helsinki was declared a success by the Politburo, since they had tied the

US at the games in terms of results, according to an unofficial points system used by the

international press.42

Soviet propaganda used its participation in the Olympic movement to justify the political

acceptability of the Soviet Union at international level, while, interestingly enough, criticizing

“the reactionary policy of the imperialistic West” exploiting international sports for their

38

"Sport after the Cold War," in East Plays West: Sport and the Cold War, ed. S. Wagg and D.L. Andrews (New York: Routledge, 2007). 277 39

Jenifer Parks, "Verbal Gymnastics: Sports, Bureacracy, and the Soviet Union's Entrance into the Olympic Games, 1946-1952," ibid. 34 40

Ibid. 38 41

Ibid. 42

Ibid. 40

15

political means and goals.43

It also presented the Soviet Union as a model participant,

supporting the Olympic goals of peace, friendship and international understanding.

The political usage of sport continued in the following decades, for example with the biggest

domestic sporting event of the 1950s, the first ‘Spartakiad of the People of the USSR’, held in

Moscow between 6 and 16 August 1956. It was intended to be an event of political and social

significance in the lives of Soviet people, and its importance was marked by the presence of

all prominent Party leaders and a number of eminent foreign guests, such as the then president

of the Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage. This event was even meant to be a culturally

unifying force, with various communist slogans worked into the various displays and

performances accompanying the games.44

Sports now became a means of continuing the war against the remaining enemy, the

bourgeois-democratic states of the world. Sports success was intended to be a morale booster

to assuage doubts about the superiority of the Soviet system, to provide a justification for all

the efforts and sacrifice made to attain a strong state and higher standard of living. Strict

control of the sports movement through functionaries of the security forces, including

warnings to players that they too, were subject to political conformity and to coercion, made

sure Soviet athletes kept to themselves, not engaging in contacts with foreign sportsmen, nor

communicating information about foreign societies to Soviet citizens. It is important to note

though, as Parks does, that “The Soviet Union did not introduce a highly nationalistic

atmosphere into IOC debates, but rather, the Soviet Union’s entrance in the early years of the

Cold War took this already present trend to a new ideological level”.45

Propaganda and Doping Use

In a total of eighteen Olympic appearances, when counting both summer and winter Games,

the Soviet Union ranked first in the medal count a staggering thirteen times, finishing second

on all its other occasions. Despite ceasing to exist for over twenty years ago now, it still

currently ranks second in the all-time medal count, with only the US outscoring it.46

It was a

43

Evelyn Mertin, "The Soviet Union and the Olympic Games of 1980 and 1984: Explaining the Boycotts to Their Own People," in East Plays West: Sport and the Cold War, ed. S. Wagg and D.L. Andrews (New York: Routledge, 2007). 237 44

Riordan, Sport in Soviet Society: Development of Sport and Physical Education in Russia and the Ussr. 175 45

Parks, "Verbal Gymnastics: Sports, Bureacracy, and the Soviet Union's Entrance into the Olympic Games, 1946-1952." 33 46

Tyler Benson, "The Role of Sports in the Soviet Union," http://blogs.bu.edu/guidedhistory/russia-and-its-empires/tyler-benson/. (Accessed 07-01-2017)

16

main focus for many propaganda schemes by the Soviet Union. This should not be surprising:

As James Riordan mentions, “apart from the early years of space exploration, sport was the

only area in which the Soviet Union could demonstrate superiority over the leading capitalist

states – in the full flare of the world’s media”.47

Already from the beginning of the USSR’s participation, rumors spread in Western media and

academic journals about Soviet athletes’ steroid use. As Sociologists Rob Beame and Ian

Ritchie show, researchers like Dr. Nicholas Wade, Robert Windsor and Daniel Dumitru

claimed a direct link between Nazi “steroid-fueled soldiers” in Eastern Europe and to Soviet

ambition with sporting success.48

These claims, as unsubstantiated as they were, transformed

rumor into an apparent medical fact, and they still continue to appear in scholarly publications,

medical periodicals, medical conference presentations, and newspapers.49

This scary image of

linking the Soviet Union to the horrors of the Nazi regime was of course very useful for anti-

Soviet propaganda, in particular in Britain and the US, who had specific ‘information’

activities set up to spread stories about atrocities and problems within the Soviet Union.50

The

Soviet Union answered with an equal amount of propaganda from their side, as described

above.

Beyond the propaganda, the actual use of doping, in particular anabolic steroids, was on the

rise both in the West and the Socialist states. Sports Sociologist Paul Dimeo has conducted in

depth research that illustrates how widespread doping use was for a significant period.51

In

the US, Dr. Robert Zeigler, a coach with the US Olympic Committee, helped develop an

anabolic steroid known as ‘Dianabol’, with the full knowledge of the US sporting authorities.

In the USSR, on the other hand, James Riordan argued convincingly, there had been “long-

term state production, testing, monitoring and administering of performance-enhancing drugs

in regard to athletes as young as seven to eight”.52

The list of positive tests and the assumption

of widespread usage during the 1970s and 1980s is well documented.53

It is interesting to note,

that the USSR and GDR have come to bare the bulk of the blame for sports doping, with

Western governments pointing the finger at these now no longer existing communist states as

47

Riordan, "Sport after the Cold War." 275 48

Rob Beamish and Ian Ritchie, "Totalitarian Regimes and Cold War Sport: Steroid "Ubermenschen" and "Ball-Bearing Females"," ibid. 15 49

Ibid. 50

Paul Dimeo, "Good Versus Evil? Drugs, Sport and the Cold War," ibid. 153 51

Ibid. 157 52

Jim Riordan, "Rewriting Soviet Sports History," Journal of Sports History 20, no. no. 3 (1993). 256 53

B. Houlihan, Dying to Win: Doping in Sport and the Development of Anti-Doping Policy (Council of Europe Publishing, 1999).

17

the main culprits. Dimeo explains the reason for this has less to do with the actual amount of

doping use, but more so with “first, the complicity and abuses of the state [while Western

states denied any involvement in doping use of its athletes] and second, a combination of

primary source evidence and changing political circumstances [the fall of the GDR and USSR

regimes]”.54

A point that is very important to make in this context, is that drug use for performance

enhancement only became taboo during the 1960s and 1970s. As Ian Ritchie notes, various

forms of drug use have been used in sporting contexts for thousands of years, and “the

condemnation and moral panic about drugs would come much later in time, under a very

specific set of social and political circumstances”.55

A first statement of principle, with anti-

doping as a subset of the ‘amateur values’ mentioned in the Olympic Charter, first became

important shortly before the Second World War, and with both sides of the ‘Iron Curtain’ now

committed to the use of anabolic steroids to improve performance and win medals, the IOC

tried to get a grip on the situation.56

The current historiography of modern sport does not

really provide an answer as to why the acceptance of drug use gave way relatively sudden to

an ethos of anti-doping, but is very well possible that the Cold War and its political climate

played a role.

The Height of Sport Propaganda: The 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games

Increasing political tensions between the US and the USSR turned the Olympic Games of

1980 in Moscow and of 1984 in Los Angeles into, as historian Evelyn Mertin puts it, “victims

of the Cold War”.57

On both sides political campaigners, sport officials and journalists were

involved in heavy Public Relations campaigns trying to influence public opinion and foreign

decision makers, leading ultimately to a US-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games, and

subsequently to the 1984 boycott of the Los Angeles Games by all Socialist athletes. After the

successful bid for the Olympic Summer Games in 1980, the Soviet Union immediately

proclaimed this choice as an “unconditional acknowledgement of the Soviet athletes’ leading

54

Dimeo, "Good Versus Evil? Drugs, Sport and the Cold War." 156 55

Ian Ritchie, "Understanding Perfomance-Enhancing Substances and Sanctions against Their Use from the Perspective of History," in Routledge Handbook of Drugs and Sport, ed. V. Møller, I. Waddington, and J. M. Hoberman (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2015). 22 56

Ibid. 26 57

Mertin, "The Soviet Union and the Olympic Games of 1980 and 1984: Explaining the Boycotts to Their Own People." 235

18

performances” and as proof that “the world sports leaders basically approved the peace loving

foreign political course of the Soviet government”.58

The extremely strong link between sports and government propaganda in the Soviet Union

becomes obvious once more if one looks at the role of the organizing Committee for the

Moscow Games, “Olimpiada-80”. Aside from being responsible for preparing the actual

Olympics, it was also instructed to increase their international sporting contacts, and report on

foreign press activities concerning the Olympic preparations in Moscow. The aim was to

ensure that the Soviet propagandists could monitor foreign reactions and if necessary, control

the narrative by presenting their own publications.59

As Mertin shows, a large publicity

campaign was staged, not just towards the socialist bloc and its inhabitants, but also with

special emphasis on an international component.60

The eventual boycott, which was part of

the response of US President Jim Carter to the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in

1979, was in Soviet propaganda countered by publications presenting the US as the villain,

with American athletes as the victims: The invasion of Afghanistan was never mentioned as

the real reason for the boycott campaign, while it was emphasized that the Kremlin had

guaranteed that the games would be staged according to the Olympic Charter.61

An important

thread in the Soviet response to the boycott, as well as in the responses of various Olympic

officials, was that the US was violating one of the most important tenets of the Olympic

movement: the separation of politics and sport.62

Four years later, it was the USSR itself that decided to boycott the Olympic Games.

According to Mertin, this was more of a last minute decision than a planned retaliation for the

American absence during the previous games. Several leadership changes within the Soviet

Union (from Brezhnev to Andropov to Chernenko between 1982 and 1984) in the years

leading up to the 1984 Los Angeles Games saw different attitudes to Olympic participation.

However, ultimately, rising tensions between the US and the Soviet Union following the

shooting down of a South Korean plane in September 1983, led to a declaration on 9 May

1984, stating that the Soviet Union would not attend the Olympics.63

M.V. Gramov took over

58

Ibid. 238 59

Ibid. 239 60

Ibid. 61

Ibid. 242 62

Anthony Moretti, "The Interference of Politics in the Olympic Games, and How the U.S. Media Contribute to It," Global Media Journal: Canadian Edition 6, no. 2 (2013). 63

Mertin, "The Soviet Union and the Olympic Games of 1980 and 1984: Explaining the Boycotts to Their Own People." 246

19

the role of head of Soviet sport in late 1983, coming directly from the propaganda department

of the Central Committee, once again showing the clear link between these departments. The

media campaign leading up to the Soviet boycott this time focused on critique of the LA

games’ capitalist funding (the first Olympic Games to be funded privately), failure to comply

to the Olympic Charter again, and reports of LA as a “center of anti-Soviet organizations”,

which they argued meant there was a need for extra assurances regarding Soviet athletes’

safety that were not given by the host city.64

Key Points

During the Cold War, sports and propaganda became inextricably linked, if they weren’t

already since the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. It is clear that the Soviet Union saw

the Olympic Games as an excellent way to promote itself both domestically and

internationally, with sport being one of the few areas through which it could argue for the

supposed superiority of the communist ideology. The Committees and departments in charge

of sport were closely linked to those involved in Propaganda for over thirty years. Of course,

the ideological component of the political discourse in the field of sport will no longer present,

now that Russia has transitioned into ‘state capitalism’. However, the narrative of showing the

greatness of Russia through sporting achievements, mentioned in the introduction, could still

show remarkable similarities with the narrative presented in the Soviet Union. Doping, and

more specifically doping accusations, played a major role in the propaganda from both sides

of the Cold War. It seems to have been a state-run affair in the USSR, but they were not the

only country where doping was used on a large scale. In fact, this seems to have been the case

all around the globe, with the difference being that in cases like the GDR and the USSR the

state was more clearly involved. This should not be a surprise, with the Soviet NOC being

much less independent as its counterparts, and with the clear importance of sporting success

for the Soviet’s narrative of ideological superiority. It is this discourse of the superiority of the

USSR that will be compared to the discourse used by the Putin regime.

64

Ibid. 245

20

Chapter 3: Interruption and Continuation: Sport in the

Post-Soviet era and the Beginning of the Putin Regime

This chapter will first briefly discuss the transitional period between the Soviet Union and the

Putin administration in Russia and its implications for Russian sports policy, in order to

establish whether the current regime’s approach to sports is a direct continuation of previous

policy or perhaps a second round of institutional change since the demise of the USSR. This

will be followed by an analysis of the political usage of sport by the Putin government, in

which nationalism plays a big role and will therefore also be given attention. This chapter

specifically looks at the language and discourse surrounding the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

From Soviet Union to Russia: Sports from 1985 to the 2000s

It becomes nearly impossible to argue that the Putin’s period in power (including the

Medvedev presidency) is a direct continuation of the USSR’s sport policy when looking at the

devastating impact the fall of communism has had on Eastern Europe in its entirety. As

Riordan notes, one of the major legacies of the European communist era is a transitional

period that in many places led not democracy, but to what has been called “post-Marxist

kleptocracy”.65

Russia underwent a brief period of ‘illusory freedom’ before robber-baron

capitalism took over for almost the entire 1990s. In this period, under Boris Yeltsin, the first

post-Soviet president (1991-1999), various mafia gangs, run on ethnic lines, bought up

Russia’s key strategic assets at around 20 per cent of their actual market value.66

When

Vladimir Putin succeeded Yeltsin as Russian president, some of these shady figures

repositioned themselves as oligarchs, now operating within boundaries set by the regime.

Putin started to operate as a neo-authoritarian dictator over Russia, with state capitalism as the

primary objective. Before we move on to the Putin period, a brief overview of changes in the

Russian sport sphere will be given from the rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachov until the

beginning of the Putin administration.

In 1985, one year after the Los Angeles boycott and five years after the Moscow games,

Mikhail Gorbachov presented the radically new policies of perestroika (restructuring) and

glasnost (openness) to the Soviet Union. Glasnost meant, among many other consequences,

the exposure of the old system of sport to public scrutiny. Victims of repression began to

65

Riordan, "Sport after the Cold War." 272 66

Ibid.

21

publish their memoirs, including former sports stars whom the public had idolized.67

While

the Olympics were a diversion from the realities of living under communism and an

ideological tool for the regime before, the rapid political change that occurred showed, to

many people, that elite sport was associated with “privilege, paramilitary coercion (the two

largest and best-endowed sport clubs in all communist states were the armed forces clubs and

the security forces club – Dinamo), hypocrisy (having to pretend that communist athletes

were amateur when they were being paid by the state and given either army officer sinecures

or fictitious employment) and distorted priorities (the huge sums of money that were lavished

on sports stars and the Moscow Olympics, while sport facilities for the masses – not to

mention hospitals, schools, housing and consumer goods for the public generally – were poor

and minimal)”.68

Further revelations were the confessions that the Soviet NOC was a

government-run institution and that its chairman had to be a member of the Communist Party.

Additionally, the Soviet state manufactured, tested and administered performance-enhancing

drugs to its athletes (while condemning bourgeois states for encouraging drug-taking).69

Statistics by previous Soviet leadership about millions of regular active participants in sports

were declared fraudulent, and only eight per cent of men and two per cent of women were

actually engaged in sport regularly.

Riordan even goes so far as to argue the Olympics played a crucial role in the changes that

occurred, by opening up the country to other countries and cultures. He quotes Eric

Hobsbawn, who stated that “the assent to communism of the masses depended not on their

ideological or other convictions, but on how they judged what life under communist regimes

did for them, and how they compared their situation with others. Once it ceased to be possible

to insulate populations from contact with, or even knowledge about, other countries, these

judgements were skeptical”.70

The argument that authoritarian hosts expose themselves to

outside influences through a mega-event such as the Olympics, is not new, but has in fact only

gained more prominence with the rise of globalization in recent times.71

This is therefore good

to keep in mind when this paper goes on to discuss the most recent mega-events in Russia. It

is also clear that the political discourse of supposed superiority was impossible to uphold in

67

Ibid. 277 68

Ibid. 275 69

Ibid. 278 70

Eric Hobsbawn, Age of Extremes. The Short Twentieth Century (London: Michael Joseph, 1994). 496 71

ndre Stanisla o ic Makar che and le andra ats k, "Introduction: Sports, Politics and Boundaries: Playing the Inclusion/Exclusion Games," in Mega Events in Post-Soviet Eurasia: Shifting Borderlines of Inclusion and Exclusion, ed. ndre Stanisla o ic Makarychev and Alexandra Yatsyk (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 9

22

the post-soviet era, and even more importantly, this imagery and discourse was no longer a

priority in a time of major upheaval of Russian society.

Major Changes in Sports and Sports Policy

The worst aspect of the old system was considered to be the misplaced priorities, and in the

post-Gorbachov era these priorities radically changed. Sport and every other aid and subsidy

came to an end. The sinecures of an army commission and “eternal” studenthood for top

athletes were removed, and the forty-two sports boarding schools were dismantled.72

This, in

turn, led to a massive “brain and muscle drain” of top athletes, coaches, sport medics and

scientists, who without communist incentives, turned to market incentives elsewhere to make

their living. By 1995, more than 300 soccer, 700 hockey and 100 Russian basketball players

were working in North America, Asia, as well as Western and Eastern Europe.73

This new and

subordinate status of Russia’s sports was of course a blow to Russian nationalism,

underscoring its decline as a world power.

The new political elite, so called ‘New Russians’, together with the ‘nomenklatura’

companies (bought far beneath their market value) became very influential in sports during

the 1990s. Sport sponsorship was seen as a way to put a “healthy gloss” on their public

image.74

No expense was spared in order to achieve sporting success. The take-over by

Roman Abramovich (whose company also happens to own Moscow’s army football team

CSKA Moscow) of English Premier League club Chelsea is the typical example of this

attitude: Chelsea’s wage bill during the 2003-2005 seasons was by far the highest of any

football team in the world.75

The methods introduced by this new elite to promote commercial

sport were often primitive to the extreme. It included the fixing of results, bribing of referees,

and even “hit” killings of those who stand in their way or expose their nefarious operations.76

One could argue that this situation resembled that of football in Colombia, when drug barons

took over the football scene in the country with similar appalling methods, with politics and

national pride also playing a huge role.77

National pride in Russia however, took a serious

blow during the 1990s and early 2000s. The Russian football team’s performance at the 1994,

72

Riordan, "Sport after the Cold War." 281 73

Robert Edelman, "There Are No Rules on Planet Russia: Post-Soviet Spectator Sport," in Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex and Society since Gorbachov, ed. Adele Barker (Duke University Press, 1999). 221 74

Riordan, "Sport after the Cold War." 282 75

Ibid. 76

Ibid. 283 77

Jeff Zimbalist and Michael Zimbalist, "The Two Escobars," (USA: All Rise Films, 2010).

23

1998 and 2002 World Cups were at best mediocre, while the once-dominant ice hockey team

was eliminated in the semi-finals of the sport’s inaugural World Cup in 1996, and the

basketball team failing to qualify for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.78

It was not just the financial and political situation that worked against Russia gaining any big

sporting successes. Starting with the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer 1994, the program of

the Games was expanded considerably, with most of the new additions being in sports that

Soviet and Russian athletes were not traditionally strong in. As a result of all these

circumstances, Russia dropped from a last overall first place in 1994 all the way down to

eleventh place in the medal rankings in Vancouver 2010, where according to minister of sport

Mutko, Russia competed intensely in only thirty out of eighty-six medal disciplines, and in

five sports out of fifteen.79

Nationalism continued to be heavily intertwined with sports. Already since 1926, football

riots were part of the Soviet sports scene: As sport historian Robert Edelman mentions,

rooting for local teams provided a safe cover for national sentiment.80

After the breakup of the

USSR, which was followed by the breaking up of All-Union leagues, this nationalist

sentiment disappeared temporarily during the 1990s. However, football as an arena for

nationalism still remained. This was highlighted to the extreme when in mid-December 2010,

Moscow was disrupted by the biggest riots in recent years, when thousands gathered at

Manezhnaia Square to protest against the death of a Russian football supporter killed during a

brawl with youth from North Caucasus. Rioters were seen shouting nationalistic and anti-

Caucasian slogans.81

To summarize the period between the fall of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the Putin

regime, it was clear that a coordinated, political narrative was absent in the field of sport for

this time. Sport was simply not a priority, and there were less successes to feed into a ‘great

power’ or superiority narrative. Nationalism however did continue to play a major role in the

sports environment.

Putin and Nationalism

78

Riordan, "Sport after the Cold War." 285 79

V. A. Gorokhov, "Forward Russia! Sports Mega-Events as a Venue for Building National Identity," Nationalities Papers 43, no. 2 (2015). 276 80

Edelman, "There Are No Rules on Planet Russia: Post-Soviet Spectator Sport." 218 81

Pal Kolstø and Helge Blakkisrud, The New Russian Nationalism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016). 2

24

Sport does not operate in a vacuum. Developments in the field of sport will of course be

influenced by developments in the political situation of a country. As Pål Kolstø, professor in

Russian Studies, points out, the break-up of the Soviet Union also meant that the share of

ethnic Russians rose from just above 50 per cent in the USSR, to 81 per cent in the Russian

Federation.82

The Putin regime not only condoned strong nationalism, including xenophobic

attitudes and expressions, but actively encouraged it, trying to exploit it for their own

purposes.83

While some hardline nationalists have ended up in the anti-Putin administration, feeling

betrayed by Putin’s welcoming of immigrant laborers, the Putin regime continues to use

nationalism as a major political tool. Putin’s national model, presented for example in an

article published before the 2012 elections, combines ethno-nationalistic sentiments regarding

the “mission” of ethnically Russian people and a state-centered orientation that still includes

the notion of a strong “Russian empire”, including ethnic minorities.84

This can for example

be seen during the annexation of the Crimea, which was sold to the Russian people in starkly

nationalist language: It was presented both as an ingathering of Russian lands in a strong

Russian state and as a defense of ethnic Russians abroad. As a result, Putin’s popularity,

which had dropped significantly, partly due to the financial crisis, reached its former heights

of 85-87 per cent.85

Intertwined with this stronger focus on nationalism, is a narrative that focuses on the ‘great

power’ status of Russia. As political scientists Derek Hutcheson and Bo Petersson point out,

Putin’s popularity rests on three pillars: “the maintenance of economic growth; the creation of

domestic order; and the skillful use of myth to project the President as the bulwark against

chaos and foreign threat, in the process reinforcing Russia’s status an unequivocal ‘Great

Power’”.86

Putin’s legitimacy is largely centered on his ability to ‘deliver the goods’, based

among other reasons on the reputation he managed to establish during his first two,

economically successful presidential tenures. The economic difficulties that have piled on

82

Pal Kolstø, "Introduction: Russian Nationalism Is Back: But Precisely What Does That Mean?," in The New Russian Nationalism, ed. Pal Kolstø and Helge Blakkisrud (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016). 3 83

Ibid. 5 84

Ibid. 6 85

Ibid. 86

Hutcheson and Petersson, "Shortcut to Legitimac : Popularit in Putin’s Russia." 1107

25

since sanctions where put in place against Russia (in response to the Ukrainian crisis), make it

necessary for Putin to look for other ways to bolster his regime.87

Political myths, defined as “a common narrative that comes with an emotional attachment that

motivates political action”, are an important tool for the Putin regime. As Hutcheson and

Petersson argue, the claim to be recognized as a great power is closely intertwined with

Russian national identity.88

Another important myth for Putin’s legitimacy describes Russia as

cyclically experiencing ‘Times of Troubles’, which can only come to an end by hard efforts

from the Russian people, united under a great leader who rescues the country from disaster.89

These myths will be important now that we focus our attention on sports again.

The arena in which Putin was still regarded as having achieved most by 2014 was in restoring

Russia’s international pride.90

Russians also overwhelmingly share Putin’s famous declaration

that the collapse of the USSR was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth

century”. Recent Putin rhetoric has focused on the perception of external threat, most notably

from the US and its allies.91

The Soviet Union and the Cold War are thus still a part of the

rhetoric of the current regime. The next section will show how sports and the official

discourse around sports played a significant role in these aspects.

Sporting Nationalism and the development of Sport under Putin

As political scientist Vitalii Gorokhov notes, and as explained in chapter two, “Sporting

rhetoric in politics and sports policy as a national issue are integral parts of the legacy that

Russia inherited from the Soviet period”.92

Political scientist Alan Bairner states, “Sport is

still far more likely to contribute to the perpetuation of strongly held local, regional and

national identities than to the construction and consolidation of a homogeneous global

culture”.93

It is precisely for this reason the Putin regime has attempted to harness the power

of sport, in a similar fashion to its USSR predecessor. Gorokhov mentions the term “sporting

nationalism”, meaning a nations’s aspiration to display excellence in sport.94

This can lead to

a ‘spillover effect’, where the nationalist sentiment or ideology configured and promoted

87

Ibid. 1109 88

Ibid. 1110 89

Ibid. 90

Ibid. 91

Ibid. 92

Gorokhov, "Forward Russia! Sports Mega-Events as a Venue for Building National Identity." 267 93

A. Bairner, Sport, Nationalism, and Globalization: European and North American Perspectives (State University of New York Press, 2001). 163 94

Gorokhov, "Forward Russia! Sports Mega-Events as a Venue for Building National Identity." 270

26

through sports affects non-sporting political processes. If we consider the three pillars that the

Putin regime’s legitimacy is based on, this is precisely how this administration is attempting

to use sport as a political tool.

In Putin’s own words, 2002 was “really the year when we started paying permanent attention

to sports and fitness, and their funding- or was it a bit earlier?”95

It was also in 2002 that the

Federal Agency for Sports and Body Culture was created to replace the State Committee for

Sports and Physical Education of Russia, which had been created in 1991 after the major

political changes that took place with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The importance of

sport for the Putin regime can be seen in the establishment of a Sport TV Channel, with the

main aim of “promoting a healthy lifestyle, sports and Russia’s achievements in sports”.96

When congratulating the TV Channel for existing for five years, Putin stated that thanks to

this channel “all of us will celebrate the successes of our athletes and will feel proud of our

country’s achievements”.97

In the years that followed, the Russian government invested

significant amounts of money into federal sports programs. A special federal program – called

the ‘Strategy for Development of Physical Education and Sports in the Russian Federation’-

was implemented in 2006, with a project budget of more than 100 billion rubles ($4.07

billion).98

Giving sports even more prominence, the Ministry of Sport, Tourism and Youth

Policy was established in 2008. When discussing the disappointing results in the Vancouver

2010 Olympics, Putin mentioned that in the 1990s, “hardly anything was invested in our

sports infrastructure during that time, and much of the Soviet infrastructure had become worn

out”.99

It is clear Putin sees a clear distinction between this period and his administration,

which, according to him, “has not neglected sports over the past eight or ten years. In fact, we

have spent serious money on sports…. Almost 3.5 billion rubles were spent to prepare our

national team for the Vancouver Olympics between 2006 and 2009”.100

95

"Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Met with Minister of Sport, Tourism and Youth Policy, Vitaly Mutko," 04-07-2008, http://archive.government.ru/eng/docs/1543/ (Accessed: 07-01-2017) 96

"Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Congratulated the Sport Tv Channel on Its 5th Anniversary," 12-06-2008, http://archive.government.ru/eng/docs/1462/ (Accessed 06-01-2017) 97

Ibid. 98

"Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Gave an Interview to the Chinese State News Agency Xinhua and to the Renmin Ribao Newspaper," 6-08-2008, http://archive.government.ru/eng/docs/1640/ (Accessed 07-01-2017) 99

"Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Chairs a Meeting to Discuss the Performance of the Russian Team at the Xxi Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver," 05-03-2010, http://archive.government.ru/eng/docs/9633/ (Accessed 07-01-2017) 100

Ibid.

27

The political use of sports definitely shows a resemblance to the approach used during the

Soviet period. Firstly, similar to the Soviet approach, the policies implemented set targets

regarding mass sport participation, with a final goal of involving up to 40 million people in

sports by 2020.101

Simultaneously, there is a clear prominence of elite sport goals in the

policies implemented. Olympic results are considered vital for national prestige. Leading

athletes, according to Putin, “should be paid a substantial monthly allowance”.102

It should be

noted though, that the last 20 to 30 years have seen a convergence in national sporting

programs, with most developed countries rewarding athletes financially for their results.

Secondly, in interviews and public statements, the Putin administration, while clearly

pursuing political goals such as boosting national pride and prestige through sports itself,

criticizes other countries for turning sports into a ‘political issue’. In an interview preceding

the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Putin said that “attempts to turn the Olympics into a political

issue are an attack on the Olympic spirit itself”.103

As mentioned in the introduction, Vitaly

Mutko, Sports Minister of Russia, also stated “Don’t politicize sports”, while Alexander

Zhukov, president of the Russian Olympic Committee, even went so far as to state that “Sport

is beyond politics”.104

Thirdly, Russia is continuously presented as a leading sports nation,

partly using the Soviet legacy to do so. As an example, Putin said Russian sport educators are

“considered to be the best in the world in many sports”.105

Before the 2008 Olympics, Putin

bragged proudly that “between 1996 and 2004 the Russian team has won a total of 243

medals – eighty-five gold, seventy-six silver and eighty-two bronze medals. We are in a

strong position among the three leaders in the unofficial medal standing together with China

and the US”.106

During the celebration of the 100th

anniversary of the Russian Olympic

Committee, Putin stated that Russian athletes “have attained prestige for their country and

built up the glory of a world-class sports nation”.107

101

"Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Meets with Vitaly Mutko, Minister of Sport, Tourism and Youth Policy," 07-06-2010, http://archive.government.ru/eng/docs/10887/ (Accessed 07-01-2017) 102

"Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Chairs a Meeting to Discuss the Performance of the Russian Team at the Xxi Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver". 103

"Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Gave an Interview to the Chinese State News Agency Xinhua and to the Renmin Ribao Newspaper". 104

Makarychev, "From Sochi – 2014 to Fifa – 2018: The Crisis of Sovereignty and the Challenges of Globalization." 197 105

"Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Holds a Presidium Meeting of the President’s Council on Ph sical Fitness and Sports in Krasnodar," 06-05-2011, http://archive.government.ru/eng/docs/15193/ (Accessed 07-01-2017) 106

"Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Gave an Interview to the Chinese State News Agency Xinhua and to the Renmin Ribao Newspaper". 107

"Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Takes Part in a Ceremony Dedicated to the 100th Anniversary of the Russian Olympic Committee," 25-11-2011, http://archive.government.ru/eng/docs/17232/ (Accessed 07-01-2017)

28

The Sochi 2014 Olympics and its Preparations

In recent times, Russia has mostly attempted nation building through so called sporting

‘mega-events’, defined by Maurice Roche as “large-scale events which have a dramatic

character, mass popular appeal and international significance”.108

Gorokhov adds to this that

hosting mega-events demand political will. Hosting a sports mega-event gives a host nation

sufficient resources for reaching a global audience, giving the opportunity to enhance

international recognition, boosting the prestige of the nation (Russia as a great power), and

securing the legitimacy of the existing political regime. For the domestic audience, which is

not likely to see direct economic benefits, the national government is likely to highlight non-

material values such as belonging to the nation, national honor, and patriotism.109

The more

successful the event is, measured mostly by sporting success but also by not having too many

headline-making news that could shift the focus away from the sporting agenda (boycotts,

scandals, etc.), the stronger the effects for the regime. Strength in sport can then be used as a

display of national power. This effect is especially strong when a good result is achieved in a

“national sport”, which the domestic crowd identifies with.110

The 2014 Olympic winter

Games in Sochi thus provided an excellent chance for Putin to achieve political goals through

sport. As Bo Petersson and Karina Vamling argue, the Sochi Winter Games were “a welcome

opportunity for Putin to display strength and resolve and demonstrate that his is still a much

needed strong hand at the helm”.111

The Putin regime is actively trying to enforce their idea of a Russian national identity through

sports. As Philipp Casula shows, this was clearly visible in the bid book of the 2014 Sochi

Olympics, which shows how the Games were designed and intended by its organizers.112

Similarly to the discourse surrounding the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Russian officials argue

that in this bid book that Russia is a modern democracy, easily fulfilling political criteria

(criteria to which, as Casula notes, the IOC has never paid much attention). This put Russia in

a position to use the successful bid for the Olympics as a means to legitimize its institutions

and regime. The brand of nationalism the Putin regime aspires to is also clearly present in the

108

Maurice Roche, Megaevents and Modernity: Olympics and Expos in the Growth of Global Culture (Routledge, 2002). 1 109

Gorokhov, "Forward Russia! Sports Mega-Events as a Venue for Building National Identity." 271 110

Bairner, Sport, Nationalism, and Globalization: European and North American Perspectives. 18-19 111

Bo Author Petersson et al., "Display Window or Tripwire? : The Sochi Winter Games, the Russian Great Power Ideal and the Legitimacy of Vladimir Putin," Euxeinos;12 (2013). 7 112

Philipp Casula, "The 2014 Winter Olympics Bid Book as Site of National Identity Constitution," in Mega Events in Post-Soviet Eurasia: Shifting Borderlines of Inclusion and Exclusion, ed. ndre Stanisla o ic Makarychev and Alexandra Yatsyk (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 40

29

bid book: ethnic diversity is hailed as an asset, but it is also made clear diversity has to stay

within its limits, politically silent, controlled, and is presented as a security risk.113

This

mirrors Putin’s views, who has emphasized that “ethnic Russians are the group that dives our

nation’s development”, while adding that “Russia’s strength lies in the fact that it is a multi-

ethnic and multi-faith nation”.114

The bid book also mentions that Sochi 2014 will “galvanize”

the nation, helping to achieve national pride and national purpose.115

During the preparations, Putin tried to project an image of being closely involved in all

possible ways , inspecting Olympic sites in February 2013, but also going so far as to deliver

thinly veiled threats regarding potential delays: “After the journalists leave, I will tell you

what failures to meet the deadlines will amount to. I do not want to frighten anyone, but I will

speak to you as people I have known for many years now”.116

Since a victory in the overall medal count was less certain in Sochi compared to the

Universiade, Russian officials sought a balance between confidence and caution in their

messages concerning the expected results. Mutko was the first official to publicly announce

the objective of winning in overall medal ranking, but Zhukov and Putin also mentioned that

Russia should aim for the highest spot.117

This objective led to several new strategies to

ensure a good result: both naturalization of international high-profile athletes, as well as

headhunting for world-class coaches and other professionals now become a top priority within

Russian sports. This recruitment was positioned as a sign of strength: “Russia is strong not

because foreigners join it, but foreigners join it because Russia is strong”.118

Although one

can never be sure about the accuracy of surveys from a country with strictly controlled media,

a public survey related to Sochi seems to confirm that the Russian public bought into this

message.119

Thus, one can conclude that in this sense, the goal (presenting national strength

through winning the home Olympics) justifies the means, when it comes to the naturalization

of foreign athletes. Although by now almost all countries make this connection, one can draw

parallels with sport in the USSR, where the Olympics was similarly seen as a means to show

superiority and strength. The importance of the event can also be seen in the enormous costs

113

Ibid. 55 114

Ibid. 46 115

Ibid. 48 116

Petersson et al., "Display Window or Tripwire? : The Sochi Winter Games, the Russian Great Power Ideal and the Legitimacy of Vladimir Putin." 7 117

Gorokhov, "Forward Russia! Sports Mega-Events as a Venue for Building National Identity." 277 118

Ibid. 278 119

Ibid. 277

30

of the event: Sochi in the end became the most expensive Olympics (both Winter and Summer)

of all time with an estimated cost of around 51 billion (!) dollars.120

Already during the XXVII Summer Universiade, held in 2013 in Kazan, Russian top public

officials attempted to turn this event into a display of national excellence, by continuous

media coverage in state-sponsored national media, and with Putin participating in the opening

ceremony, followed by an appearance by Medvedev in the closing ceremony.121

Russian

athletes won a sheer unbelievable amount of 292 medals, of which 155 were gold medals, but

most likely due to the absence of any real rivaling competitors (China was second in the

medal standing with twenty-nine gold medals), this result did not gain a clear-cut, positive

appreciation among the domestic audience; instead, critics pointed out the large amount of top

professional athletes that Russia had entered into the “student” competition that the

Universiade is supposed to be (a sort of ‘medal engineering’).122

From the government

administration, this led to Minister of Sport Mutko and President Putin both responding in

public to critics, with Putin going so far as to calling these critics “Ill-natured people” and

suggesting prescriptions of Viagra to cure their grievances.123

Where the Russian government positioned the Universiade as a sort of “prologue”, the Winter

Olympics in Sochi 2014 were supposed to be the main course. It is interested to note that

under the Putin regime, the set-up of Russian sports organizations shows a certain

resemblance with that under Soviet times. For example, Gorokhov mentions that recruitment

for all key public positions related to Sochi 2014 was based “exclusively on the ground of

personal loyalty to president Putin and not on the ground of professionalism, experience, or

past success in the field”.124

Already when the USSR joined the Olympic movement, a

concern of the IOC was that a Soviet Olympic Committee would not be an independent

organization, but attached to the government. Now, for the Sochi Olympics, Aleksandr

Zhukov, member of the supreme council of the pro-president party United Russia, who held

several government positions, became the head of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC),

while Vladimir Kozhin, head of the Department of Presidential Affairs since 2000, held an

120

Richard Arnold, "Mega Events as Agents of State Socialization: Human Rights Protests in Beijing, 2008, and Sochi, 2014," in Mega Events in Post-Soviet Eurasia: Shifting Borderlines of Inclusion and Exclusion, ed. ndre Stanisla o ic Makar che and le andra ats k (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 16 121

Gorokhov, "Forward Russia! Sports Mega-Events as a Venue for Building National Identity." 274 122

Ibid. 275 123

Ibid. 124

Ibid. 276

31

appointment as an ROC vice-president and simultaneously became the President of the

Russian Winter Sports Association.125

It is quite easy to see the resemblance.

Was Sochi a Success?

If one looks purely at sporting achievements, Sochi can absolutely be considered a success for

Russia. Russia finished on top of the medal table, with four more gold medals than the

USA.126

. In the end, the Russian team won thirteen gold medals, with naturalized athletes

winning five individual medals and three gold medals as part of Russian teams, and foreign

coaches contributing to seven out of thirteen Russian gold medals and nineteen out of thirty-

three medals in total.127

As mentioned above however, the success of such a mega-event, in particular one with such

clear political goals attached to it, cannot be measured solely in terms of medals. As Andrey

Makarychev notes, the opening ceremony of the Sochi Olympics was meant to deliver a

narrative of Russia as a great power and autonomous pole in the world, coupled with an

imagery in which the Soviet Union has not disappeared, while bound together in an explicit

Putin-centrism sovereignist discourse.128

Unfortunately, only fourty world leaders attended

the opening ceremony. In terms of achieving international prestige, one could argue that this

signals a failure to gain respect from the international community, despite attempts by the

regime to improve Russia’s image, for example by declaring amnesty for certain prisoners on

23 December 2013, or releasing Greenpeace activists who had stormed a Russian oil rig in

September 2013.129

These moves did however ensure that criticism of Russia’s human rights

record in Western newspapers such as the Guardian and New York Times was eased prior to

the Olympics taking place.130

Other criticized areas were the construction of so called “White

elephants”, infrastructural investments costing a lot of money but not actually being of any

125

Ibid. 126

"Olympic Medal Count - 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics," http://www.espn.com/olympics/winter/2014/medals. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 127

"Forward Russia! Sports Mega-Events as a Venue for Building National Identity." 128

Makarychev, "From Sochi – 2014 to Fifa – 2018: The Crisis of Sovereignty and the Challenges of Globalization." 199 129

Arnold, "Mega Events as Agents of State Socialization: Human Rights Protests in Beijing, 2008, and Sochi, 2014." 20 130

Ibid. 33

32

use post-Olympics, environmental degradation in the area, and the marginalization of the

local Circassian population.131

Political scientist Richard Arnold argues that the failure of the Sochi Olympics to result in

“soft power gains” has direct ramifications for the events that followed in Ukraine and Crimea

directly after Olympics: “Had the human rights situation in Russia been less heavily criticized

before the Games (so affecting a bigger ‘boost’ to the nation’s soft power), Putin may have

faced more resistance to turning Russia into an international pariah”.132

The earlier description

of Hutcheson and Petersson regarding the three pillars of Putin’s legitimacy, points in the

same direction: If Russia’s status of great power had been confirmed more strongly by the

Olympic Games, with less criticism, this could have also had the potential to bolster Putin’s

popularity without the need for a new crisis or external enemy. Petersson and Vamling also

argue that the developments in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine have led to the a complete

disappearance of the earlier criticized issues from the international agenda or interest.133

Key Points

It is clear that the transitional period between the Soviet Union and Russia under the Putin

administration does not show a lot of similarities to the political discourse surrounding sport,

but by adding contrast, it actually highlights the clear resemblance of sport propaganda in the

periods surrounding it. Although nationalism and national pride have taken the place of

communism as a central ideology, the equally crucial concept of ‘great power status’, now for

Russia instead of the Soviet Union and Communism, has been copied almost identically into

the narrative presented by the Putin regime, which both implicitly and explicitly looks at the

Soviet Union narratives for a model to base its own discourse on. The final chapter, looking at

the doping scandal in Russian sports, will be an excellent event through which an analysis of

this discourse can be further substantiated.

131

Bo Petersson and Karina Vamling, "Vanished in the Haze: White Elephants, Environmental Degradation and Circassian Marginalization in Post-Olympics Sochi," ibid. 60 132

Richard Arnold, "Mega Events as Agents of State Socialization: Human Rights Protests in Beijing, 2008, and Sochi, 2014," ibid. 133

Bo Petersson and Karina Vamling, "Vanished in the Haze: White Elephants, Environmental Degradation and Circassian Marginalization in Post-Olympics Sochi," ibid. 72

33

Chapter 4: Russia on the Defensive

This final chapter will discuss the most recent developments in sports in Russia, mentioning

the continuation of Russian sports policy under the Putin regime. In the last two years, several

scandals have arisen in the Russian sports environment: an external one with accusations of

bribery towards FIFA and its selection procedures that led to the FIFA 2018 World Cup being

planned in Russia, and an internal scandal in the form of accusations of wide-spread,

potentially state-sponsored doping usage by Russian athletes. The responses by government

officials in attempts to control the narrative surrounding these scandals are of particular

importance for establishing the Russian sports narrative and its importance to the Putin regime.

Outside influence on the Russian sports environment

Since the Sochi Olympics, political developments have followed each other in rapid

succession. As a consequence of its Ukraine policy, the Putin regime has been hit by

international economic and financial sanctions, as well as diplomatic isolation. This of course

also has significant consequences for the sports environment in Russia. As Makarychev

mentions, never before has a football World Championship been held in country “under

international sanctions and in a state of de facto military conflict with its neighbor”.134

The

annexation of Crimea left the Russian Football Union (RFU) with a very political decision to

make; whether to include the Crimean clubs into the Russian championship or not. The

discussions that followed give a great insight into the decision-making processes of Russian

sports. The RFU members adjourned the voting to clarify the Kremlin’s position first: “If we

are tasked with getting adjusted [to the Kremlin-approved policy] we’ll certainly do so.

Anyway we’ll choose the motherland over all the rest. If there is a direct instruction [to vote

for including Crimean clubs] – then it’s ok”.135

The RFU was however also constrained by

international sports institutions, such as the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA),

since they threatened with sanctions if the RFU incorporated the Crimean teams.136

The 2018

World Cup thus indirectly undermines Putin’s sovereign power, by ensuring that Russian

football organizations have to adhere to the standards and decisions made by international

sports institutions. As Makarychev successfully points out, this leads to the paradox that

134

Makarychev, "From Sochi – 2014 to Fifa – 2018: The Crisis of Sovereignty and the Challenges of Globalization." 196 135

Ibid. 202 136

Ibid.

34

sports, used to legitimize Putin’s regime and present a top-down narrative of Russia as a self-

sufficient ‘great power’ and a particular brand of nationalism, now undermines this same

regime by forcing it to accept certain limitations on its influence.137

Sanctions on individuals and companies that are crucial for the FIFA World Cup have made

preparations increasingly difficult, leading to cuts in the budget for the event. Sports minister

Mutko dubbed the World-Cup an element of the anti-crisis plan to combat the economic crisis

in Russia, but the facts that a 10 per cent budget cut was also announced and that Russia has

asked FIFA for permission to reduce the occupancy of two stadiums, clearly show the

difficulties Russia currently has to maintain its current course regarding sports.138

These

difficulties have also led to more top-down mobilization, such as administrative pressure over

corporate business or enforced street cleaning by state employees.139

This reinforces the

problem of Russia attempting to increase its standing in the world through sports while

preparing for sports events with practices that only widen the gap between Russia and the

West.

These problems are further exacerbated by the crisis of legitimacy that the FIFA currently

faces. FIFA, one of the few global institutions to fully legitimize the Putin rule, became the

subject of widespread corruption charges in 2015. Several top officials were arrested on

charge for corruption and bribes totaling more than $100 million.140

A part of the criminal

proceedings that followed were related to the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups,

meaning that Russian officials were forced to react. Some of the accusations made in the

international media directly linked corrupt FIFA officials with the Russian government and its

business associates, such as Gazprom, the Russian energy company sponsoring FIFA.141

Besides that, Sepp Blatter, the then FIFA president, had even gone so far as to say that

opponents of the Russian World Cup should better “stay home”, thereby expressing strong

support, disregarding appeals for boycotts in the light of Russia’s Ukraine policy.142

It should

thus not come as a surprise that Russian officials defended the FIFA top officials strongly

when the scandal broke out. Putin accused the US of “Meddling outside its jurisdiction” by

137

Ibid. 138

Ibid. 203 139

Ibid. 204 140

ESPN Staff, "Fifa Timeline: Blatter and Platini Banned, More Arrested," 21-12-2015, http://www.espnfc.com/blog/fifa/243/post/2630853/fifa-timeline-blatter-and-platini-banned-more-arrested. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 141

Makarychev, "From Sochi – 2014 to Fifa – 2018: The Crisis of Sovereignty and the Challenges of Globalization." 205 142

Ibid. 206

35

arresting FIFA officials, calling it an attempt to stop Blatter’s re-election.143

This was

complemented by even stronger reactions by Russian officials, explaining the arrests of FIFA

functionaries as a US-led operation to attempt to deprive Russia of the World Cup, even

claiming Blatter was under fire because “he has good connections with Russia”.144

Putin even

stated later that Blatter should be in the running for a Noble prize, since people like him

“foster mechanisms of cooperation between countries”.145

As Makarychev points out, this

straightforward defense of Blatter and his associates reveal a major problem with the image of

an independent strong sovereign Russia: this image requires legitimation by international

sports organizations if sports are being used for creating and fostering this image. If the

legitimacy of these organizations becomes questioned, then this directly affects Russia.146

This problem also points out a difference in the effectiveness of the political discourse

surrounding sports now and that of the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, the effectiveness

of the political discourse was mostly important for internal policy goals, and less so for

international legitimacy. Now, this discourse has become vital for both internal and external

imagery. Through this increased importance, the fragility of this line of practical reasoning

can also be shown. With FIFA’s legitimacy put into question, this also puts the legitimacy of

the Putin administration under threat. The legitimacy of international sports organization was

never really questioned in the decades following World War II, so this potential flaw was

perhaps never considered in the decision-making process surrounding the political discourse.

The Problems pile up: The Russian Doping Scandal

The Putin administration’s use of sports for its political purposes became even more

problematic in the period between Sochi 2014 and the 2016 Rio Olympics. A documentary by

German public broadcaster ARD called Secret doping – How Russia makes its winners, aired

3 December, 2014 results in WADA commissioning an investigation into the allegations

against Russia.147

While the investigations also accused other organizations and figures, such

as the then president of the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF), Lamine

Diack, the main findings of the first WADA independent commission included “criminal

143

The Guardian, "Russia’s Vladimir Putin ccuses United States of ‘Meddling’ o er Fifa rrests," 28-5-2015, https://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/28/vladimir-putin-fifa-united-states-meddling (Accessed 07-01-2017) 144

Makarychev, "From Sochi – 2014 to Fifa – 2018: The Crisis of Sovereignty and the Challenges of Globalization." 206 145

Ibid. 207 146

Ibid. 147

Deutsche Welle, "Timeline: Doping in Russia," 09-12-2016, http://www.dw.com/en/timeline-doping-in-russia/a-19409797 (Accessed 07-01-2017)

36

conduct on the part of certain individuals and organizations”, “systemic failures within the

IAAF and Russia that prevent or diminish the possibility of an effective anti-doping program”,

and the recommendation that WADA withdraw its accreditation of the Moscow laboratory as

soon as possible, since it was deemed unable to act independently.148

This report led to the

suspension of both the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) and the Russian Athletics

Federation (ARAF), but is only the tip of the iceberg. A follow-up report published in January

2016 also links Russian state-controlled bank VTB with corruption regarding its sponsorship

of the IAAF and buying TV-broadcasting rights for the 2013 IAAF Moscow World

Championships.149

The response of Andrey Kostin, head of the bank, was very much in line

with the Kremlin line that was followed during the outbreak of the doping scandal: Kostin

commented on the accusations stating “This is certainly an outrageous lie”, and "We do see

coming constantly from the West, I would say, such sophisticated approaches”.150

In the beginning of 2016 several Russian athletes were banned from participating in their

sports for the use of meldonium, a substance newly added to the banned substances list of

WADA. Minister of sport Mutko assured the press that these violations were likely to have

been done “unwillingly”, and as usual in Russian official statements, instead pointed at the

US, were according to him “nobody does doping tests at those (U.S.) leagues and boxing

associations”.151

Over the course of 2016, more and more accusations of doping usage are

made regarding Russia. First, another German documentary claims even more breaching of

IAAF and WADA rules has taken place.152

Second, and more severe, the former director of

the Russian antidoping laboratory Grigory Rodchenkov, on 12 May 2016, admitted in a long

interview with the New York Times that he helped facilitate an elaborate state-run doping

program.153

The program, according to Rodchenkov, included Russian anti-doping experts

and members of the intelligence service who “replaced urine samples tainted by performance-

148

Richard Pound, Richard H. Mclaren, and Gunter Younger, "Independent Comission Investigation Report 1," WADA, https://wada-main-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/resources/files/wada_independent_commission_report_1_en.pdf, 9 (Accessed 07-01-2017) 149

TASS, "Iaaf Says to Stay Clear of Russian Vtb Bank’s Intended Lawsuits against Wada," 22-1-2016 http://tass.com/world/851692, (Accessed 07-01-2017) 150

Ibid. 151

"Situation with Doping in Russia Very Much Politicized — Sports Minister," TASS Russia News Agency, 26-03-2016, http://tass.com/sport/865350. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 152

Welle, "Timeline: Doping in Russia", 153

Rebecca R. Ruiz and Michael Schwirtz, "Russian Insider Says State-Run Doping Fueled Olympic Gold," 12-05-2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/sports/russia-doping-sochi-olympics-2014.html. (Accessed 07-01-2017)

37

enhancing drugs with clean urine collected months earlier”.154

This interview leads to further

investigation in the US, by the IOC, and WADA. WADA continues with more serious

allegations, while stating that its investigators were impeded by athletes and “intimidated by

Russia’s FSB secret service”.155

The strongest accusations to be presented in 2016 were published in July in the first

independent person report by sports lawyer Richard Mclaren, which presented that it

“uncovered a system within Russia for doping athletes directed by senior coaching officials of

Russian athletics”.156

It added to the previous reports that “the WADA accredited laboratory

was controlled by the state and acted as the failsafe mechanism to cover up doping”.157

Russian officials immediately went on the counteroffensive: on July 20, four days after the

presentation of the Mclaren Report, the state-owned TASS news agency published an article

arguing that specialists, such as anti-doping expert Professor Nikolai Durmanov, had serious

doubts regarding certain “technical details” of the report, also stating that “the doping

problem in Russian sports is very acute, although not any severer than in other countries.158

It

denied any state program and also accused the report of “zombifying” the distinguished

public by “blaring ominous abbreviations, such as the FSB and KGB. All this very much

looks like a disinformation campaign”.159

Putin’s Response

The main response to the report, however, came from President Putin himself. In a statement,

he argued that recent events “involuntary recall the situation in the early 1980s”.160

It is

interesting to note he concedes that the Soviet Union used “the pretext of an allegedly

insufficient level of security for the Soviet team”, thus in a sense admitting that the SU had

other reasons than those presented in the official discourse at the time. He does however

continue the narrative that athletes were the victims of the reciprocal boycotts, becoming

“hostages of political confrontation”.161

The statement by Putin shows that the Kremlin did

154

Ibid. 155

Welle, "Timeline: Doping in Russia", 3-01-2017. 156

Richard H. Mclaren, "The Independent Person Report," https://wada-main-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/resources/files/20160718_ip_report_newfinal.pdf. 8 157

Ibid. 9 158

T SS, "E pert Suspicious of Mclaren’s Report on Doping in Russian Sport," 20-07-2016, http://tass.com/sport/889531. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 159

Ibid. 160

Vladimir Putin, "Statement in Response to the Report by the World Anti-Doping Agency," 18-07-2016, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/52537. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 161

Ibid.

38

not alter their discourse surrounding sports following the doping accusations. Again, the

accusation is made that it is others who are “letting politics interfere with sports”, making

sports “an instrument for geopolitical pressure”. Putin discredits the report as being based on

“information given by one single person, an individual with a notorious reputation”, while

claiming that USADA is trying to “again dictate its will to the entire world sports community”

by asking for a ban by the entire Russian team from the 2016 Rio Olympics.162

The statement

ends with the promise that Russia “shares in full the Olympic movement’s values of mutual

respect, solidarity, fairness, and the spirit of friendship and cooperation”.163

If one analyzes

the entire text and the image it tries to create, the resemblance to the discourse surrounding

sports in the Soviet Union is almost uncanny. The commitment of Russia to Olympic values,

the accusations regarding the US politicizing sports, and even the remarks that innocent clean

athletes are the real victims, could all be placed in the context of the Olympics during the

1980s, which he even recalls himself (!), and wouldn’t even be noticed as stemming from a

different time. Representatives from the Russian foreign ministry, TASS and the minister of

sport all weighed in with similar statements, calling the report “a blow not only on us but also

on global sports”, and arguing that the “’doping scandal’ is part of Washington’s ongoing

effort to isolate Russia and to build opposition to Putin inside Russia”.164

In the end, the IOC decided to not ban the Russian team from the 2016 Rio Olympics, but did

establish a set of special conditions for all Russian athletes wishing to compete in the Games.

These included letting international federations have the final say for each sport (the IAAF

banned all Russian athletes), and requiring that all Russian athletes had undergone adequate

international doping tests in the period prior to the Olympics, and not being implicated in any

possible way in the Mclaren report.165

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) did

however issue a blanket ban on Russian athletes from competing at the Rio Paralympic

Games.166

While the decision regarding the Olympics was met with a grateful response by

then minister of sport Mutko, the ban of Russian athletes from the Paralympics was met with

an extremely harsh response by Putin, who said the IPC “is humiliating itself”, saying the

decision “is beyond all boundaries of legal norms, moral principles and humanity”, while

162

Ibid. 163

Ibid. 164

TASS, "Foreign Ministry Says Campagin against Russian Athletes Strikes Blow on Olympic Movement". 165

International Olympic Committee, "Decision of the Ioc Executive Board Concerning the Participation of Russian Athletes in the Olympic Games Rio 2016," 24-07-2016, https://www.olympic.org/news/decision-of-the-ioc-executive-board-concerning-the-participation-of-russian-athletes-in-the-olympic-games-rio-2016. (Accessed 07-01-2017( 166

Welle, "Timeline: Doping in Russia", 3-01-2017.

39

again arguing that the ban was solely based on political reasons.167168

The Russians that were

allowed to compete in the Olympics in the end reached 4th

place in the overall standing, with

fifty-six medals, which was the worst result for a Russian team in twenty years.

Protecting Russian Prestige

From the outset, the response has been to discredit the reports on doping abuse. Most

importantly, Russian officials have upheld that the doping issues in Russia were in no way

state-facilitated: Instead, minister of sport Mutko stated “I very much regret that many

coaches and athletes themselves are convinced that you can’t win without doping”.169

This

tactic should not come as a surprise. By shifting the blame away from the state as a whole, to

certain individuals, it becomes possible to dismiss these individuals with national prestige

remaining unblemished (at least in the official narrative). In fact, Russia went on the offensive,

with Mutko announcing to the world that Russia’s Ministry of Sports will file lawsuits to civil

courts against any author claiming Russia has state support for doping.170

Whether the

conclusions of the Mclaren report are accurate or not, the Putin regime has done everything

within its power to attempt to establish a different narrative. This also included setting up a

Russian investigative committee to scrutinize the Mclaren report, as well as an independent

Anti-Doping Commission through the ROC. This Commission, first proposed directly by

President Putin, is led by Vitaly Smirnov, an honorary member of the IOC as well as

president emeritus of the ROC.171

Smirnov stated when starting his mission that “we should

find out why some international sport organizations have been unjust to Russia”, adding that

“we are going to look into what caused such a mass phenomenon that a large group of athletes

violated the doping rules”.172

In general, the discourse surrounding sports has in no way changed since the doping scandal.

The accusations have been brushed aside as a politically motivated move by the west (more

specifically the US), whereas Russia continues to be the great sporting nation it has always

167

TASS, "Sports Ministry Thankful to Ioc for Not Banning Russia from Olympics," 24-07-2016, http://tass.com/sport/890289. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 168

"Putin: Ipc Humiliates Itself by Barring Russian Paralympians from Rio Games," 25-08-2016, http://tass.com/sport/895887. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 169

"Russian Sports Minister Praises National Team’s Performance at Ol mpics," 22-08-2016, http://tass.com/sport/895277. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 170

"Russia to File Civil Lawsuits against Those Claiming It Supported Doping — Minister," 27-08-2016, http://tass.com/sport/896256. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 171

"Smirnov Hopeful Roc Anti-Doping Commission's Mission to Be Accomplished by 2018 Olympics," 05-08-2016, http://tass.com/sport/892580. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 172

Ibid.

40

been. The public in Russia seems to buy into this messaging as well: Two-thirds of Russians

(63 per cent) see the Paralympics ban and accusations towards Russia as politically motivated,

according to an opinion poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center.173

53 Per cent of

those surveyed also stated they felt pride when watching Russian athletes perform, showing

once again the clear correlation between national prestige and sports that not just the Putin

regime, but many countries across the world are trying to capitalize on.174

Putin, speaking at

an international sports forum tellingly called ‘Russia – Country of Sports’, continued along

the same lines earlier established in his regime, arguing that “We must do everything possible

together to ensure the cleanliness of sport so that it can become absolutely open and be

outside politics so that its ideas and values unite countries and peoples”.175

Then, almost as a

sidenote, he added, that “when we speak about the cleanliness of sport, we mean not only

politics”, making doping use sounds as a secondary issue, with the politicization of sports as a

much larger threat.176

In the official discourse, the doping scandal has not affected the

greatness of Russia as a sport nation, in fact, it has almost enhanced it. President of the ROC

Alexander Zhukov interpreted the results of the 2016 Olympics so that despite the difficulties

of the “constant doping scandals”, “our athletes performed brilliantly in Rio and proved that

our successes do not depend on any ‘magical cocktails,’ made up by certain schemers”.177

A Russian Counteroffensive?

Sport has in no way lost its prominent position in the Putin administration. On October 19

2016, despite the suspicions raised against Minister of Sport Mutko in the Mclaren report, he

was appointed as a vice-premier in the Russian cabinet, with Deputy Sports Minister Pavel

Kolobkov taking charge of the ministry.178

As prime-minister Medvedev stated, this was done

in order for sport, “which is one of the most important spheres of social activities” to get a

larger representation in the cabinet.179

173

"Two-Thirds of Russians Surveyed Slam Ban on Paralympics as Political Tool," 18-08-2016, http://tass.com/society/894895. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 174

Ibid. 175

"Putin Says World Anti-Doping System Must Be Open," 11-10-2016, http://tass.com/sport/905724. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 176

Ibid. 177

"Russians Proved in Rio They Need No Doping to Win - Russian Olympic Chief," 28-12-2016, http://tass.com/sport/922892. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 178

"Putin Agrees to Appoint Sports Minister Russia's Vice Premier," 19-10-2016, http://tass.com/politics/907416. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 179

Ibid.

41

When the second Mclaren report was published on December 9 2016, the previously

established Independent Public Anti-Doping Commission immediately countered with Vitaly

Smirnov stating that “despite the presented accusations I would like to point out that there has

never been an organized system in Russia for the falsification (of doping samples)”.180

Another component of Russia’s response has been to point out that it is not only Russian

athletes who are caught using performance-enhancing substances. Putin stated that “As we

have come to know – and the World Anti-Doping Agency is not denying that – dozens or

hundreds of athletes are taking these (banned) substances. Does anybody know that? No one

does. Everything is done secretly”.181

Interestingly enough, the new Minister of Sports

Kolobkov, condemned the definition Mclaren gave in his second report of an “institutional

conspiracy”, stating “There has not been and could not have been any conspiracy”.182

The

image presented here is that of widespread secretive doping abuse, while on the other side

Russia is dealing with violations, clearing itself of doping, dismissing everyone involved in

the doping scandals. Kolobkov even says “It could be great if other states investigate anti-

doping violations as steadfastly as we do”.183

ROC president Zhukov declared in November that Russia had cleaned up its doping program

and should be allowed to return to all international competitions, and during the last few

months, Russian officials have focused their public statements on pointing to other potential

doping abuses.184

A hacking collective operating under the name of ‘Tsar Team’, also known

as Fancy Bear, illegally gained access to WADA’s database, releasing athlete medical data.

WADA stated that according to law enforcement authorities, “these attacks are originating out

of Russia”.185

While the Kremlin denied any involvement in the hacking, Vladimir Putin was

quick to use the leaked data to point out “double standards” in anti-doping policy: “Healthy

athletes take medications outlawed for others, while people, who obviously suffer from grave

illnesses and disabilities, are barred from participation in Paralympic Games on sheer

180

"Russian Sports Ministry Urges Investigation into Facts Stated in Mclaren Report," 09-12-2016, http://tass.com/sport/918172. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 181

"Putin Says World Anti-Doping System Must Be Open", 06-01-2017. 182

"Russian Sports Minister: Mclaren’s Words on "Institutional Conspiracy" Erroneous," 09-12-2016, http://tass.com/sport/918196. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 183

Ibid. 184

Welle, "Timeline: Doping in Russia". 185

WADA, "Wada Confirms Attack by Russian Cyber Espionage Group," 13-09-2016, https://www.wada-ama.org/en/media/news/2016-09/wada-confirms-attack-by-russian-cyber-espionage-group. (Accessed 07-01-2017)

42

suspicion”, referring back to the IPC’s ban for Russian Paralympians.186

While it is not within

the scope of this paper to determine whether the Russian goverment was involved in the

hacking of WADA’s database or not, it is certainly interesting to note that the lists published

by Fancy Bear, detailing a large amount of athletes who gained so called Therapeutic Use

Exemptions for otherwise banned substances, contained several US star athletes and only one

Russian athlete.187

Regardless of how the data became public, it is clear it provides Russian

officials with more ammunition for their counteraccusations regarding doping use in the

sports world.

The latest developments in the Russian discourse surrounding the doping scandal seemed to

indicate a change in tone by Russian officials. According to an interview in the New York

Times, current head of RUSADA, Anna Antseliovich, admitted that in fact “it was an

institutional conspiracy”, and that Russian officials said they longer disputed a damning set of

facts that detailed a doping program “with few, if any, historical precedents”.188

This was

however immediately countered by Russian officials: RUSADA stated that “the words of

acting General Director Antselovich were distorted and taken out of the context”.189

In fact,

the remark of Antselovich was meant to prove the opposite point, saying that Mclaren had

given up using the phrase “state-sponsored doping system” and used the words institutional

conspiracy instead, “thus excluding the involvement of the country’s top leadership”.190

This

was followed by a warning of Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko that “Russian officials

must carefully comb through their statements regarding doping abuse issues when

communicating with foreign media outlets and should also request personal authorization

prior to such interview’s final issuance”.191

In the end, this small hick-up thus only confirmed

the current tightly controlled official narrative surrounding Russian sports, and a change of

direction does not seem likely.

Key points

186

TASS, "Putin: Wada Data Exposed by Hackers Raise Many Questions," 16-09-2016, http://tass.com/sport/900207. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 187

"Serbian Basketball Player, Swiss Road Bicycle Racer on New List Revealed by Fancy Bears," 23-09-2016, http://tass.com/sport/901870. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 188

189

TASS, "Rusada Blasts New York Times for 'Distorting' Acting Chief's Doping Remarks," 28-12-2016, http://tass.com/sport/922973. (Accessed 07-01-2017) 190

Ibid. 191

"Deputy Pm Urges Russian Sports Officials to Be Careful When Speaking to Foreign Media," 28-12-2016, http://tass.com/sport/923038. (Accessed 07-01-2017)

43

Although the discourse surrounding the Russian doping scandal is very much still underway,

it is clear that, by the cut-off point of this paper (January 2017), certain patterns are clearly

discernable. The discourse based on nationalism and Russian pride, described in the previous

chapter, are prominent in the responses of state officials to the accusations made in the

independent reports sanctioned by WADA. The conclusions of these reports are seen as an

attack on Russia as a great sporting nations. Any claims of institutionalized doping use are

flat-out rejected. Sport and nationalism are heavily intertwined, and because of this and the

relation of these components to the legitimacy of the Putin regime, there is too much at stake

for the Putin administration to accept the conclusions of the Mclaren report at face value. This

has led to a contestation of the facts on which debate and dialogue could be based. One could

argue that this a very common phenomenon in the current political climate: ‘alternative facts’

and ‘fake news’ are everywhere, and regardless of the validity of the conclusions of the

Mclaren report, Russia is ensuring that the sports world is now also engulfed in this global

trend.

44

Conclusion

Sports has risen to prominence more and more in the last decades, and this trend does not

seem likely to change. This is likely to be accompanied by even more political interest and

influence on sports, especially with regards to mega-events such as the Olympics or the FIFA

World Cup. Russia has been in the spotlight of Western news sources for various reasons in

the last few years, and sports played a major role in this development. The corruption scandal

surrounding FIFA had direct consequences for the legitimacy of having a World Cup in

Russia, and the Sochi Olympics of 2014 have been tainted by strong accusations of systemic

doping abuse with aid from within the government by Russian athletes. Regardless of whether

these accusations are completely accurate, or that there’s truth to the Russian response

denying government involvement, these events have had direct consequences for the political

usage of sport under the Putin regime.

The main question of this thesis was aimed at explaining the response of the Putin regime to

the Mclaren report and subsequent developments. In order to do so, analyzing the history of

sports in Russia is crucial. If one places the statements and policies of Russian government

officials about sport in a historical perspective, a number of remarkable similarities can be

pointed out between the last decade and the discourse put forward by USSR officials during

the period of 1950-1985. After the period following the collapse of the Soviet Union, in which

sports understandably lost some its importance in turbulent times, sports has been placed high

on the political agenda again. Firstly, both USSR officials and the current Russian regime

insist that sport should not be “politicized”. According to this narrative, sport should not be

used for any political messaging, and Russia is presented as a loyal and exemplary member of

the Olympic movement. Secondly, although this narrative argues that sport is outside of

politics, it is clear that the Putin regime is attempting to gain prestige, a form of soft power, by

investing heavily in sports in general, and elite sports in particular. Similar to the USSR,

targets have been set for mass participation in sports (with numbers that might be more

accurate than the inflated numbers of the Soviet period), and elite athletes are supported by

the state. With the great power status of Russia being central to the legitimacy and popularity

of the Putin regime, it makes sense that international prestige through sports becomes an

important policy area. Putin has on many occasions personally intervened in sports policy.

The fact that Minister of Sport Mutko was recently promoted to Vice-premier despite the

current crisis that Russian sports find itself in, also attest to this importance. Thirdly, Russia

45

has continuously been presented as a great sporting nation. In interviews, international sport

forums, and any type of public event, Russian officials have emphasized that Russia has

always been a greatly successful nation in the Olympics, making the USSR legacy its own.

Thus, although communism as a central component of the sports discourse has been replaced

with nationalism as an ideology, the idea of Russia as a great sporting nation, with a great

power status, has been copied almost directly into the discourse used by the Putin regime.

This narrative could have been considered problematic with the recent doping scandal and the

accusations of corruption surrounding the election of the FIFA 2018 World Cup to Russia, but

these scandals have in fact led to an even more rigidly structured political discourse

surrounding sport in Russia. The scandals have helped to make the narrative even more

similar to that of the Cold War period, with Russian officials describing both the accusations

of the independent WADA report as well as the corruption accusations aimed at FIFA

officials as an American-led “anti-Russia campaign”. The scandals have helped to fit sports

into a narrative that can be found in other aspects of the current Kremlin discourse, with the

Russian government protecting its citizens, in this case its athletes, from unjust behavior by

outside parties. These outside parties, usually describes as the West in general, but sometimes

pointing to the US specifically, are using sports for their own gains, while Russia continues to

be the exemplary member of the Olympic movement. Despite overwhelming evidence to the

contrary, the Russian narrative remains that of certain individual doping mistakes, and

certainly no worse than any other country’s athletes. The recent date released by hackers

(Russian government steered or not), helps to portray Russia as a victim, where athletes are

not presented with the same opportunities of being granted exemptions for certain substances,

even if those substances are not similar to those that Russian athletes tested positive for.

Instead of accepting the legitimacy and arbitrary power of independent international

organizations, Russia established its own investigative commissions, possibly to create further

doubt surrounding the accusations.

The explanation for this rigid approach, with a narrative that seems set in stone, not be strayed

away from, seems to lie in the close correlation between nationalism, sport, and the legitimacy

of Putin’s administration. With the Ukraine crisis and the following economic sanctions

causing difficulties regarding the other two pillars of legitimacy for Putin, it becomes

understandable to choose this narrative as the outcome of of rational, practical reasoning

underlying the decision-making process. Accepting any other narrative, or choosing to change

course in their own narrative, could have ramifications for Putin’s powerbase at home. Thus,

46

the chosen discourse most likely stems from argumentation that puts consolidation of power

above all else. As noted in the title of this thesis, one could argue that while the discourse of

the Putin regime is strongly influenced by that of the Soviet era, a major difference is that it is

now being used as a defense against the Mclaren report, which through its accusations also

threatens the legitimacy of the Putin regime as a whole, instead of as an ‘attack’, to show the

superiority of the Soviet Union to the world.

The developments of the last two years could have serious consequences for the coming years.

As Putin pointed out himself, the 1980s led to a political situation that made athletes and

Olympic tournaments ‘victims’ of the Cold War. By not accepting the judgement and

decisions of international organizations that at least attempt to be completely neutral and

independent of politics, there is a significant chance that sporting events will become

extremely politicized again, leading to boycotts, international scandals and athletes who

become the ‘play puppets’ of their respective political regimes. Despite the claim that Russia

is trying to “keep politics out of sport”, it is clear that Russia is escalating the situation by not

accepting the judgement or narrative of WADA, the IOC, Interpol (in the case of the FIFA

scandal) and others but instead sticks to its own narrative, which seems to have direct links to

Soviet times.

47

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